


Want You to Stay (Stay, Darling)

by bluesyturtle



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Boys Kissing, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Party, Reconciliation, Recreational Drug Use, Shotgunning, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:14:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24279412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesyturtle/pseuds/bluesyturtle
Summary: Steve gets invited to a graduation party and thinks, why not go? What does he have to lose?Less than he stands to gain, apparently.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 14
Kudos: 166





	Want You to Stay (Stay, Darling)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beguile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/gifts).



> Originally posted on tumblr for my friend Beguile who requested the prompt “ignipotent: presiding over fire” / Harringrove. The first draft of this had a much tamer ending, but I went back in and made some changes. ;)
> 
> 1) People below drinking age are imbibing here and also smokin' it up. Ey, yo, 420, blaze it.  
> 2) Nobody is sober, but everybody loves everything that's happening.  
> 3) The boys are both eighteen here, just fyi.
> 
> The title is from "Stay" by Madonna. Enjoy, loves!

Tommy hosts a graduation party out by the quarry the day after finals. Steve doesn’t really know why he’s invited, but he figures, to hell with it. He’s got nothing else going on and seeing everyone all together one more time before graduation might be cool.

He shows up an hour late, not that anyone notices. That might’ve upset him once, but tonight it’s what he was hoping for, to sneak in, have a drink, and head out. He could’ve had a drink at home, but even if he has the same amount of conversation here as he would there, an empty house isn’t anywhere near as full or noisy or bright as a party. Speaking of bright, though, he notices pretty quickly that Tommy’s party has something Steve definitely couldn’t have gotten at home. Somebody built up a huge bonfire a few feet from the water’s edge. The thing spitting out smoke and embers and the occasional loud pop looks alive.

Other than that, it’s a standard setup: cheap beer, a keg, a few people splashing around in the water, and someone’s blasting Cheap Trick from their car speakers. A bunch of girls from the cheerleading team are dancing and singing along. Steve thinks they sound like cats, but they look like they’re having fun, and that’s pretty cool.

He passes a couple making out on his way to the cooler — Tommy and Carol, as it happens — and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping to kiss someone tonight. It’s not likely to happen if he keeps to himself the whole time, but the thought of trying to get them all to look at him just makes him feel tired for some reason. There’s a big thing of driftwood blocking the cooler from the bonfire, and Steve crosses over it with a cold one sweating in his hand. He pops the tab and downs it in one go, feeling cold from the beer but warm from the fire.

“You need something stronger there, Harrington?”

Steve crunches the can in his fist and stares at it for a long time before looking over at the shape Billy cuts all lit up in the firelight. He almost reminds Steve of that night his life took a turn for the weird and a fucking monster went up in flames right in front of him. Here and now, though, Billy looks more like he’s part of what makes it burn, less kindling and more accelerant.

“Yeah, if you’re gonna keep talking to me,” Steve mutters. He tosses his empty can into a black trash bag already halfway full of cans and sticks.

“How ‘bout a smoke?” Billy asks, and fuck, Steve didn’t even hear him walking over. He pretends to pluck something out from behind Steve’s ear. It’s a joint. Doused in orange light and flickering shadows, he croons, “Yes? No? Maybe?”

Steve stares at him, bewildered and something else. Billy looks more sober than anyone else Steve has seen since driving up, but he’s gotta be trashed. Why else would he be standing this close and not trying to fuck Steve up? Billy raises his eyebrows.

“Try again later?” he coos.

“Look, I’m not doing this with you tonight. I just wanna get a buzz on and go home.”

“Lemme get a buzz on you then,” Billy murmurs, his smile like a knife and looking more deadly for the fire crackling over his shoulder, casting all his edges in sharp relief. “Or are you not in the mood to have a little fun?”

Steve squints at him. He’d thought Billy seemed sober at first glance, but maybe the joint in his hand isn’t his first of the night. That would go some of the way towards explaining it.

“Depends. Are you gonna smash a plate over my head again?”

Billy’s smile stutters, and the weapon of his mouth takes to looking like a wound. He recovers a second later, but he can’t get that blade-like curve to settle in where it was. There was a time when Steve would’ve felt good taking him down a peg, but now he just feels like he’s exposed a scar. He’s not sure if it’s his or Billy’s, is the thing. It gets him thinking of all the other ways people can give scars.

Steve meets Billy’s eyes, Billy who’s gone quiet and squirmy since Steve brought up the fight. They’ve done a pretty good job staying out of each other’s way ever since that night. Steve thought it was because they’d just fight if their paths crossed again, but here they are at a crossroads and Billy doesn’t look like he wants to fight. He doesn’t like he’s been wanting a fight either.

“You know,” Steve starts, tilting his head when Billy jumps at the sound of his voice. “An apology goes a long way. I mean. In my experience.”

In the light of the fire, staring and wide-eyed, Billy looks like a kid but like he’s seen the inside of hell, too. The only other person Steve knows who looks like that is Dustin’s friend El, and he’s got it on pretty good authority that she _has_ seen the inside of hell. So what has Billy seen?

He jerks out of his trance to glare at the fire. As closely as Steve’s watching him, he’s still surprised when Billy’s hand shoots out. Steve takes it, perplexed until Billy finally looks at him.

“Sorry, for…”

“Yeah,” Steve says, throat tight with his heartbeat, and with something he can’t name.

“I didn’t — It wasn’t — ”

Steve nods, lost but not. Somehow he knows what Billy means and why he can’t say it. If he put him to it, Steve couldn’t either. Billy pumps his hand once and lets go before Steve’s figured out how to follow him in the gesture.

“So…” Billy clears his throat. “You want that smoke or what?”

“Sure,” Steve says, smiling.

“Not here, though. If I gotta listen to Madonna one more fuckin’ time, I’m gonna lose my shit.”

They walk out into the woods together. Once they’re in the trees, it gets too dark to see anything. Steve lets Billy take the lead and crashes through the underbrush after him. Billy stops suddenly, and Steve bumps into him.

“Harrington, Jesus Christ.”

“ _What?_ It’s dark!”

Billy feels out into the darkness for him and hauls him the rest of the way through the trees. Steve doesn’t know where they’re headed until they clear the trees and wind up on the bank by the water. They’re close enough to hear laughter and just a suggestion of music, but Steve can’t see anyone even when he steps out onto the wet, muddy rocks. It’s damn near cozy.

“How’d you know this was here?” Steve asks.

“Didn’t,” Billy tells him, puffing once and passing him the lit joint. He drops down to sit where the ground is dry and stretches his legs out in front of him.

Steve sits next to him, close enough that they can pass the joint back and forth easily. In the moonlight, he can’t remember what it was about Billy’s face that made him look anything but young. It’s still weird being this close to him, but that feeling goes up in smoke, hit for hit, and it starts to feel weirder _not_ leaning into Billy. Even through his denim jacket he’s warm. It’s a good feeling.

Billy flicks the nub after they’re done with it and digs around in his pocket for another. Steve definitely wants to help him smoke it, so when Billy starts asking him a question, Steve’s already saying yes. His ears catch up with his mouth, and he squints.

“Wait, what?”

“I said, you ever shotgun a hit before?”

“Oh. Then no.”

“What did you think I was gonna say?” Billy purrs, back on his grinning bullshit, but he doesn’t look dangerous like he usually does. Between the lopsided tilt of his smile and the glazed look in his eyes he looks more at risk for raiding a fridge than he does for starting shit.

“I thought you were gonna ask if I wanted to smoke some more. What’s — what did you call it, a shotgun?”

“Yeah, shotgunning. It’s one hit going from me to you. Sharing is caring, right?”

“Sure, I guess. How does it work?”

Billy flicks his tongue against a sharp tooth. He shrugs one shoulder. “I blow smoke, you breathe it in. Easy.”

“What, like, you blow it in my face?” Steve asks, starting to grin, too. That sounds silly.

“Nah, into your mouth.”

“My mouth?” Steve echoes, an insistent pulse of warmth uncurling low in his belly.

Billy hums, takes a slow drag and holds it. There’s a patient, oddly steady look to his eyes, the same one he pointed at Steve that night outside Mrs. Byers’ house, except here it doesn’t look like a taunt. It just looks like an invitation. Steve stutters and gives a jerky nod. When that doesn’t get Billy to move, he swallows and unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

He says, “Yeah, do it.”

Billy leans in close, pausing when Steve flinches — just a little, just at the sudden closeness of him — and taps the spot under his chin. It gets Steve’s heart racing and not because he’s scared of getting hit. He doesn’t quite breathe in at the same time that Billy breathes out, but he catches most of it. After, for a moment, Billy’s still right there, close enough to taste, and that’s it, isn’t it? They could be kissing if Steve’s lungs weren’t full of smoke. He chokes on the realization and turns his head, sputtering and coughing. His skin buzzes through his clothes where Billy thumps him a few times on the back.

Billy’s laugh, usually psychotic, sounds softer now. Everything about him seems softer, everything but the lingering weight of his palm spanning Steve’s shoulder. He’s got his other hand halfway to his mouth to take another hit when Steve stops him, their fingers overlapping for a second, two. He takes the joint off Billy’s hands, and that small, clumsy touch, that slide of friction, makes his stomach flip. Silence rises up between them, full and heavy with anticipation.

He’s not stupid. Even if he can’t make sense of why he wants this, he knows he wants it. That’s enough for him if it’s enough for Billy. Steve takes a slow drag, nice and deep, and Billy’s gaze dips from his eyes to his mouth. He only hesitates as long as it takes for Steve to press his fingers to his jaw.

They draw in closer this time, and the way Steve feels, there’s no way he’s not finding out if his lips are as soft as they look. There’s no way. He lets the smoke rush out of him, lets Billy take it, and smears a kiss into his mouth. It’s like standing by the bonfire again, cast in a burning glow and sparking to life everywhere that Billy’s touching him, everywhere Billy _could be_ touching him. Billy breaks away to let the smoke go.

Steve tries to remember how to breathe, too, but he’s having a rough go of it. He stubs out the burning cherry until it goes dark, thinking, okay, now Billy’s gonna kick his ass. He’s halfway to apologizing and most of the way toward accepting that he’s going home with a black eye when Billy turns to face him, eyes dark and focused. He frames Steve’s face with his hands, gentle in a way Steve didn’t think he could be, and kisses him. It feels good. _Billy_ feels good.

His hands are bigger than Steve’s used to, and he knows from experience how much damage they can do, but nothing about the way he’s touching Steve now feels wrong. It just feels like falling, the kind Steve hasn’t been doing much of lately. He wraps Billy up in his arms, wanting more of him, wanting him closer, as close as he can get him.

Billy tastes like beer and smells like a bonfire. He _touches_ like a bonfire, like Steve’s firewood and Billy wants to burn down to cinders with him. Steve breaks away to try and catch his breath but finds himself swaying back in and sucking a bite into Billy’s neck. He makes a gruff, choked off sound and presses his hand to Steve’s crotch, and then Steve’s the one gasping out gibberish against Billy’s skin.

“Fuck, c’mere,” Billy whispers, tugging at Steve until he goes sideways into Billy’s lap.

He sprawls out, head tipped back into Billy’s shoulder and legs splayed out. _It feels good_. He thinks he says it out loud.

“Yeah, I can tell,” he murmurs back, slipping his hand into the opened vee of his fly. “ _Oh_ … all this for me, huh, pretty boy?”

The groan ripped out of Steve tapers off into a laugh before melting into a moan again. Billy’s hand is hot on him, and _fuck, yeah,_ he feels good. He squirms a bit, notices how Billy’s breathing changes, and moves again with purpose, grinding down onto him in a way that gets his face burning. It’s worth it — how good it is, how fucking into it Billy clearly is — and Steve’s so caught up in hooking swears from the deepest part of Billy’s belly that he’s not prepared for his orgasm slamming into him.

“Shit,” Billy hisses, clawing Steve’s shirt up to his throat to try and spare him the mess.

That’s nice of him.

“Fuck, Harrington.”

“You feel so good,” Steve whispers, probably for the hundredth time tonight. He’s gone all boneless in Billy’s arms, and a cursory, foggy look tells him that only a little bit got on his stomach, most of it spilled out over Billy’s knuckles. Without thinking much of it except that he likes the way Billy feels and tastes and _responds_ , Steve takes that hand and lifts it to his mouth.

“What’re you…”

He trails off at the first touch of Steve’s tongue to his knuckles and doesn’t make any effort to say anything else. A soft, warm pressure blooms on Steve’s shoulder, and he knows without looking that it’s Billy’s chin taking root there so he can watch Steve lick his fingers clean.

“You’re somethin’ else, you know that?”

Steve gives a languid stretch and reaches behind his back for the bandana in his pocket. He gives Billy’s hand a quick pass with it first then gets whatever’s left on him.

“You had that the whole time?” Billy muses, a smile in his voice and in his eyes.

“Kinda forgot,” Steve admits, remembering how to be bashful the further from hazy his mind gets. He twists sideways in Billy’s lap, dropping his attention and his hand where Billy’s still hard in his jeans. “Didn’t forget about this, though.”

“Gonna do something about it?”

Steve grins, laughing, and gets his hand where he really wants it. Billy clutches after him, desperate and straining. It’s just too easy for Steve to turn in his lap and swing a leg over him so they’re face to face. Billy grabs him by his hair to kiss him, to bite him, to lick into his mouth, and Steve’s about it. Fuck yeah, he is. He likes the way Billy comes undone like a tight-knit ball of string steadily unraveling in his hands, getting softer and sweeter the more his edges fray. He likes the way Billy kisses him, too, like he’s been waiting a while for someone to coax him from a spark into flames, and now that he’s got someone up to the task he doesn’t wanna let go. Steve knows the feeling. Couldn’t explain it, no, but it’s enough to feel it.

This time he remembers the bandana, and he’s free to watch Billy’s face when it happens, how the look there goes slack for just a moment before drawing tight as if it hurts him to feel good. Steve lets his hand linger and swoops down to press kisses, open-mouthed and soft, to Billy’s neck. Trying to soothe the ache, maybe. He couldn’t say. He just knows he’s not done yet, and he doesn’t want Billy to be done either.

“We should do that again,” Steve murmurs, before Billy’s really snapped back to himself.

“You want to?”

“Yeah,” he says, sitting up so Billy can see his face and the clarity in his eyes. “My parents aren’t home.”

Billy’s hands squeeze against him wherever they wandered and fell, under his ribs and at the scruff of his neck. His eyes, still dark, still full of intent, are a little more guarded now. Just a little.

“If you want to,” Steve adds, throwing it out there because he actually doesn’t know if Billy wants to, and it’s important that he find out.

One more squeeze at his hairline, gentle, and then Billy’s easing his hand down the curve of his neck, over his shoulder, and down his arm. Thinking, weighing the question in his mind, and Steve doesn’t know what there is to consider, but that’s all the more reason to let him puzzle through it on his own. At least until Billy gives him something more to work with.

“Already got off, didn’t you?” Billy mumbles, like that’s a reason to stop.

Steve shrugs. “Sure. So did you.”

“Then what more do you want?”

“To do it again?” Steve asks, starting to smile but holding back the laugh sitting at the back of his throat. He trades the giddiness for mischief, thinking that’ll be harder for Billy to take as a jab. “To do it other ways? To see what it takes to get you to call me by my first name?”

Billy rolls his eyes, but he’s starting to smirk, too, and his hands are soft, soft.

“We don’t have to,” he clarifies, starting to wonder if maybe he’s come at Billy’s indecision from the wrong angle.

“But you want to,” Billy says, cutting off the rest of what Steve thought to say.

“Well, yeah, I liked it. Didn’t you hear me? I said it like a million times.”

Billy snorts, squeezing one more time with his hands. He murmurs, “All right then, Harrington. We’ll see what you got.”

Steve beams, starts to get up, and pauses to do up Billy’s jeans. He folds up the bandana into as neat a square as he can and shoves it back into his pocket. He checks Billy’s face again for the all-clear. The imperious look Billy gives him twists that ever-present current of heat in his belly, and goddamn it, as much as Steve tries to tell himself it doesn’t mean anything, he’s starting to understand why he can’t shake it.

“Ready?” Steve asks, wondering just a smidgeon if _he’s_ ready or if he even knows what he’s getting himself into.

“You gotta get off me first,” Billy purrs, back to teasing and looking at Steve like he’s a bowl of ice cream on a hot day.

“Oh, right,” he mumbles, scrambling to get to his feet. He offers Billy his hand, and for a second, they’re just holding onto each other, and that feels good, too. Then Steve remembers he asked for this, braces, and pulls Billy up.

He gives Steve a heated once over, licks his lips, and drawls, “Look at you, planting your feet.”

“Hey, it was pretty good advice,” Steve tells him, smirking, and daring one more time before Billy slinks off into the trees to kiss him.

“You wanna make it to your house or what, Harrington?” he asks, sliding his hands from Steve’s hips around to his back.

“Yeah, but…”

Billy grabs him and hauls him close. He nips his ear and whispers, “Can’t keep your hands off?”

“No, I fucking can’t,” Steve pops back, kissing him again with every intention of making it last. He doesn’t know a lot about this outside of what he’s learning from one moment to the next, but he knows they’re gonna have to play it cool when they’re out in the open again.

“Get me outta here, and then you can fuckin’ touch me all you want, Harrington,” he says, trying to sound bossy but breathing too hard to manage it.

“Want me to drive?” Steve asks, twisting away but holding on just as tightly as ever.

“You head out first, and I’ll follow.”

Steve rolls his lips together, trying to decide something. He sees Billy starting to ask what the fuck his problem is and stops him with his mouth. Billy claws a fist into his hair, meeting Steve with teeth and heat until Steve edges him back into gentle territory. He grins against Billy’s cheek, pleased but not quite sated. Not when he knows there’s more they could get up to if they had, say, a bed to fall into. He starts to go but stops, hearing something. A laugh tumbles out of him, and this time Billy’s too quick to be silenced.

“Something funny, Harrington?”

“Listen,” he says, grinning and holding his hand up in the direction of the music. “It’s your favorite.”

Billy’s eyes unfocus, listening, and when the chorus hits, he groans, eyes scrunching shut, and that just makes Steve laugh harder. He twists out of Billy’s grip and darts away, singing:

_“I never want you to leave!”_

“Damn it, Harrington!” Billy yells after him, chasing him back toward the party.

_When you walked out my door  
I knew you’d be back for more  
Let’s leave the past behind  
_ _True love is so hard to find_

Steve bursts through the tree line with Billy hot on his heels and only narrowly avoids getting tackled. Billy’s giving him a look like he wants to kick his ass, but Steve’s not fooled. He knows the difference now. He looks around at the dwindling party, just to check and see if anyone’s gonna notice them sneaking away together. Pretty high chance no one will, as much as everyone’s been drinking. The music’s the only real noise now, and even that doesn’t seem as loud as it was when he drove up.

_Don’t be afraid_  
_It’s gonna be all right  
_ _‘Cuz I know that I can make you love me_

He starts to back away, watching Billy all the while. The fire’s banked now but still burning, and the shadows it casts on Billy’s smirking face are softer than they were.

“You better not keep me waiting, _Hargrove_.”

Billy bares his teeth in a smile, looking nowhere near as mean as he thinks he does, and says, “Then you better get going, _Harrington_.”

Steve flashes a grin at him and takes off to his car. He can’t wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
